If you’re going to take a stance, the trick is to appeal to more customers than you alienate, so you better know your customers. Lands’ End got that so spectacularly wrong with their Gloria Steinem catalog interview last year, the CEO was ousted. And this week, Pepsi is hustling to recover from a spectacular face-plant over a new ad set in a fictional protest march. Smart brands avoid aligning exactly along the lines of fracture. Intel appears to be playing to both sides of the gallery, countering legal pushback against Trump’s ban with a splashy announcement about building a US-based factory. Last year, Budweiser’s star-spangled rebranded “America” beer looked like it belonged in the fist of someone wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat. And yet Bud’s Super Bowl ad sympathetically depicted its founder’s less-than-cheery welcome as a US immigrant.

So, whose side are you on? It may not matter, so long as you tread carefully. How will your brand make the most of the current climate of contentiousness?